apologetics theology culture worship

​Think about the phrase "New Age." What comes to mind? Old documentaries of hippies at Woodstock experimenting with LSD and yoga?Shirley MacLaine holding a cluster of crystalson the cover of Time Magazine back in the ‘80s?Deepak Chopra teaching Oprahhow to move things with her mind in the ‘90s? As old or out of touch as these images may seem, New Age beliefs are hotter than ever and have permeated our culture—but with a slick new image. The psychic hotline of the ‘80s has been replaced by winsome hipster gurus who have traded robes for skinny jeans—often translating Eastern religious ideas into Christianese.

Many Christians aren't even aware of how New Age beliefs have infiltrated Christendom through the Progressive Church.I've written about Progressive Christianityhere, and talked about ithere,here, andhere. It wasn't until I recently did a study of New Age Spirituality that I realized how much Progressive Christianity has in common with it.

Here are 5 ways Progressive Christianity and the New Age Spirituality are kind of the same thing:

1. The redefinition or abandonment of the concept of sin

New Agers believe all people are inherently divine....that there is no such thing called "sin," but only the failure to remember our divinity. In her master class on the Oprah and Friends network in 2008, New Age leader Marianne Williamson led countless Americans through the book,A Course in Miracles.Participants were encouraged to affirm "There is no sin,"(1)and were taught, "The Atonement is the final lesson [a person] need learn, for it teaches him that, never having sinned, he has no need of salvation."(2)And all of this information supposedly came from Jesus Himself.(3)

Several years ago I heard a Progressive pastor teach on Genesis 3, the famous passage in which Eve was tricked by the serpent into eating the forbidden fruit. Rather thanreading the account as historical fact,he was unpacking the moral "truth" we could all learn from this creation story. He made the point that when this first couple took that fateful bite, it was theirshame,not their sin,that separated them from God. In other words, they failed to recognize their belovedness...their inherent goodness and worth. If they were "separated" from God, it wasthey who were distant....not God. Progressive writer Brian McLaren describes it this way: "They lose their fearlessness in relation to God."(4)

Notice the similarity of language. Without original sin we are all good, and we are only distant from God in our own minds when we forget that.

2. The denial of absolute truth

New Age thought is marked by its relativism: a rejection of objective morality and absolute truth. If something feels true to you, it's true. If it feels right to you, it's right. If something feels real to you, it's reality. In other words, your own thoughts and feelings are your authority for what is true and real.

​One distinctive feature of Progressive Christianity is its denial of biblical authority. But of course, no one operates without an authority—if you remove one authority, you will replace it with another. Typically, Progressive Christians shift the authority for what they believe is true from the Bible to themselves—by becoming their own moral compass which will inevitably ebb and flow with culture.

3. An acceptance of Jesus, but a denial of His blood atonement

New Age thought leaders almost always couch their teachings in Christian language. Jesus is an example of someone who attained enlightenment by connecting with the divine—an example any of us can follow. His death wasn't a saving act...the "saving" comes from within ourselves when we realize we have the same capabilities as Jesus already within us. This is often referred to as "Christ consciousness." This is why many New Agers see no contradiction in reciting the Lord's prayer while believing in karma and the healing power of crystals. Of course, this is an outright denial of His atoning death and resurrection.

​Many (not all) Progressive Christians also deny the blood atonement of Jesus. Last year, popular Christian musician Michael Gungor took to Twitter to rant about the idea of God requiring a blood sacrifice for sin, calling it "horrific." In his controversial book, Love Wins, Rob Bell refers to this idea as something Christians simply picked up from surrounding cultures and used to explain the death of Jesus. In a 2016 lecture explaining the Eucharist (Communion for us Protestants), Bell joked about the ridiculousness of atonement theory, summing it up as: “God is less grumpy because of Jesus.” This gave the audience a good laugh, as Bell went on to explain that the real reason we pass the bread and wine is to "heighten our senses to our bonds with our brothers and sisters in our shared humanity."

Many Progressive Christian leaders have popularized the phrase "cosmic child abuse," a term first coined by Steve Chalke to protest the idea that a loving God would require a blood sacrifice for the sin of mankind.

4. It's all about "me"

New Age thought revolves around the "Self." Self-empowerment and realization of our innate divinity are central to its teachings and practices. According to New Age bloggerKalee Brown, when Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" in John 14:6, "The 'me' Jesus referred to isn’t himself, but rather the Self withinyou" (emphasis mine).A Course in Miraclesalso asks the participant to affirm: "My salvation comes from me."(5)And hey....if we are all divine, why shouldn'tit be about us?

The typical Progressive Christian will probably not agree that it's all about them—in fact, they tend to be very focused on social justice. But that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about a theological shift.Progressive favorite Richard Rohr even goes so far as to write that each of us and sometimes "creation" is the "fourth member of the blessed Trinity," implying that the fullness of God isn't complete until we become a part of it.(6)

Generally speaking, the concept of sin is abandoned or redefined, truth becomes relativized, and a mere martyr’s cross gives us a more palatable Jesus who is a great teacher, moral example, and doting BFF—but not the all-powerful warrior King who will one day return in a blood-dipped robe to judge the living and the dead. (Revelation 19:13; 2 Timothy 4:1)

5. Universalism

Former New Ager and now Christian believer Steven Bancarz noted that New Age proponents affirm the idea that all roads lead to God.He wrote:

The New Age movement holds tightly to religious pluralism and universalism, which isthe view thatall religions are inspired by a common Source and they all point to the same truth that we will one day reach, regardless of what path we choose to get there.
​

Many Progressive Christian authors affirm some form of universalism—implicitly, by denying the concept of a literal hell, or explicitly, by declaring that all people will be reconciled to God, regardless of their beliefs or religious practices.

​The concept of universal reconciliation (that Jesus will reconcile all sinners to Himself,) was smuggled into the mainstream consciousness of the Evangelical church through the wildly popular 2007 book,The Shack. Years later, its author, William Paul Young, confirmed his intention in his book,Lies We Believe About God. He wrote, "Are you suggesting that everyone is saved? That you believe in universal salvation?That is exactly what I am saying!"(7)

None of this is new. Throughout church history these ideas have emerged again and again. They are old pagan dogmas recycled as new and edgy ideas, dressed up in modern garb and given a Christian make-over. Trevin Waxput it perfectly on Twitter:

One of the insufferable aspects of heretics and heresies is how boring, predictable, and recycled they are. Orthodoxy is thrilling in its holding together of paradox and mystery. Heresies are narrow because they’re tailored to their times.
​

Progressive Christians may think they are being cutting-edge and relevant by stepping outside the bounds of orthodoxy, but in reality they are simply falling for the ideology that has kick-started every false religion since the fall of man: "They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator" (Romans 1:25).

My cousins told me the truth about the New Age beliefs over 30 years ago, and worried that it would infiltrate the Church. Sadly their worries became true. The underlying issue with New Age/Progressive belief is that we are still trying to put ourselves up as god. That was what the devil told Eve she could do if she took that bite, and we have been trying to be god ever sense. Your picture at the top of your blog post is on point. Whenever I think or speak about the dangers Christians are facing or have fallen into, I say "may God have mercy on us" as fervently as I can. The devil is running amok and dancing with glee at how many people fall each day while so many of us shed tears for them. I ask God often "how long, Lord?" How much worse is this going to get before God says "enough" and Jesus returns.

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Kristy McSwain

9/10/2018 09:44:41 pm

Belinda that is my cry too.... "how much longer Lord can you give us your mercy?"

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Michelle

3/6/2018 10:40:56 am

Thank you Lisa for being a heralder of truth... THE TRUTH! My husband and I actually just left a church that I'm afraid is slipping down this slope. It's original founder started the church in an attempt to be culturally relevant while strictly adhering to the truth of scripture. He left a few years ago due to an illness and I'm afraid his replacement is going down the wrong path. Just very sad to see. "Sermons" have become very ME focused as opposed to God focused and while I'm sure the current pastor would deny that he is veering from the truth of scripture, there are just too many alarming signs of just that. :(

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ERIC D NELSON

3/6/2018 10:32:21 pm

I'm hesitant to comment because I don't want to defend new age thought or any of the "progressive Christians " you mention, but I would like to understand what you mean by atonement theory. As far as I know there are many atonement theories, penal substitione being only one of them. So two questions.1) When Jesus said to the pharasies " Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy NOT sacrifice" what did he mean? 2) Hebrews 9:22 says: under the LAW ...without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Are we under the law?
Thanks Alisa, I really enjoy your podcast.

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Alisa Childers

3/6/2018 10:57:28 pm

Hi Eric. I chose to use the broad phrase "atonement theory" because in my research reading Progressive Christian books and blogs, I have found that there is a general rejection of the idea of Jesus' blood making atonement for sin. Without getting into the differences between substitution, penal substitution, penal satisfaction etc..., I was trying to make the point that the whole idea of blood atonement is largely rejected.

Regarding Matthew 12:7, my understanding is that Jesus is quoting Hosea 6:6, which makes the point that although God instituted the sacrificial system, He didn't want the Jews to just go through the motions. They were technically doing the right things (making sacrifices) but they didn't really know God and love Him with all their hearts as they were commanded to in Deuteronomy 6:4-5. They were worshiping other gods and living in disobedience. So in this case, their sacrifices were meaningless. He wanted their obedience and love...not just their rituals.

I understand Hebrews 9:22 in light of the next few verses (particularly 26 and 27) in which Jesus "appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many." So Jesus' sacrifice actually fulfilled the law. Thankfully, no we are not under the law anymore because of the blood sacrifice of Jesus.

I hope this helps. Thanks!

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Brian Fisher

3/7/2018 10:00:09 am

I always thought of "New Age" as music, and overall as a separate religion. Never really saw a correlation between the two. Thanks, Alisa.. The scenarios you described remind me of the happenings at the Wild Goose Festival, lol.

Question- in your opinion, what is the more accurate term to use today, Progressive Christianity, or Emergent Church? Some say the latter is old school and not really an accurate description. Could you please share your thoughts as time allows?

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Alisa Childers

3/7/2018 01:11:13 pm

Hi Brian, I think more people use the term "Progressive Christianity" now, because when the Emergent church was first "emerging," it seemed to revolve more around a critique of the way the church had been doing things. There were people of all theological stripes. Now it seems that Progressive Christianity has emerged, and is becoming more defined theologically. As I read Progressive books, they all seem to be saying very similar things, whereas, in my understanding, there was more diversity in the Emergent church. I think it still may be too early to say....

Fantastic article Alisa. Thank you for writing it. I've often debated with progressive Christians and even many conservative evangelicals who while disagreeing with the movement still seek to defend the bulk of it as being "basically" within the pale of orthodoxy, saying that even over the points where progressive Christians say they are still in line with historic Christianity (most point to the fact that they hold to the Nicene Creed), they in the end really aren't even orthodox here because of the way in which they deceptively use terminology as you so eloquently make clear in this article. So, for instance, they really don't hold to the Nicene Creed at all for when it says that Jesus is God of God the Nicene fathers had a very specific understanding of the term "God" there. They were speaking about the God of the Old Testament in all of His infinite attributes. But when most progressive Christians use the term "God" they mean something quite different, believing the God of the Old Testament to largely be something barbaric and primitive that we need to evolve past and they also usually embrace some form of open theism and/or panentheism. This is what makes the movement so deceptive and dangerous across the board.

Thank you Alisa for this article and your ministry and work. I heard about you at MamaBear Apologetics.
I have added a link to your website on the Southwest Dallas Reasonable Faith Chapter website at: https://southwestdallasreasonablefaith.wordpress.com/

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Alisa Childers

3/7/2018 01:12:17 pm

Thank you Richard!

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ERIC D NELSON

3/7/2018 09:40:28 pm

Thanks for responding, this is a topic I have been very interested lately and will require more study on my part. I am curious about your use of the term 'blood atonement'. I don't often hear it referred to that way by Christians in any camp. Would you consider doing a podcast on the topic? Possibly explore some of the different theories and wich would be in or outside of orthodoxy.

Actually the term "blood atonement" is becoming more and more common in conservative evangelical circles, especially among the laity. The term is used to emphasize both the objective side of the atonement and the absolute necessity of the shedding of Christ's blood.

You are correct that there are many theories on the atonement, but what most conservative evangelicals believe is that what separates orthodox views from heretical views is both of these elements. Older heretical views such as those held to by the Socinians, many Liberal Protestants, and even some radical Arminians, all denied the objective side of the atonement but did not overly fixate on the blood side of things. Most felt that on some level the Father allowed the Son to experience such a horrific death so as to soften our hearts leading to our repentance. This was certainly heretical because it was a purely subjective view of the atonement and that is completely unacceptable from a biblical standpoint. But it was not until the early 20th century with the Fundamentalist-Modernist movement that you first saw people attack the blood side of the atonement. To say that the Father was involved in this side of things, even passively, was seen as cosmic child abuse. But even back then it tended to be the most radical of scholars that went this far. However, within progressive Christian circles today it is the norm to hear this kind of talk. Because most embrace some form of open theism, the Father's role in the atonement is left rather vague and opaque and in some sense He wasn't entirely behind it, even in the sense of allowing it.

As Alisa has pointed out, it is often terribly hard to pin down progressive Christians theologically because the movement is so eclectic and thrives on being as vague as possible, so I am over-simplifying things here and painting things with too broad of a brush stroke, but often it sounds to me like progressive Christians are simply saying that in some sense the Father uses the Cross after the fact to show us how horrible we can be as humans in order to get our attention. And so the blood element becomes almost completely superfluous in a way that really does seem to exceed even past heretical conceptions of the atonement.

So while the term "blood atonement" is still fairly new, I am all for it.

I should add though that it is probably best to usually refer to it as the blood atonement of Christ so as to distinguish it from an older Mormon doctrine that is something else entirely. Just to be on the safe side....

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ERIC D NELSON

3/9/2018 10:58:46 pm

Dan, thanks. Im glad you pointed out that the term is most associated with 19th century Mormon doctrine. This may be one good reason not to use it. Blood atonement of Christ does make the distinction.
I am thinking alot about atonement theories. The way I was brought up in the church I thought PSA was the only option. Maybe it is correct, but there are some passages of scripture that are challenging it for me.
2 Cor. 5:19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself
1 Cor 2:8 If the rulers if this world had understood the wisdom of God they would not have crucified the Lord of glory
And Acts 2:36, 4:10 Peter tells the crowd at Pentecost " this Jesus whom YOU crucified.
This would suggest that it was people (us included) influenced by satan, principalities and powers who crucified Jesus not knowing that he was God.Then God mercifully forgives us even though it is the greatest possible sin.
If I understand PSA correctly, it is God punishing Jesus to vent his wrath on him instead of us.

Alisa Childers

3/10/2018 01:28:27 pm

Eric, your original comment prompted me to do a bit more digging around. At the time I wrote this article, I wasn't aware of the Mormon doctrine, so I get why it could be confusing. I agree with Dan that it works (as long as it's attached to Jesus) because if you simply use the word "atonement," Progressives (and New Agers) do subscribe to certain atonement theories. So I was trying to signify that it had to do with Jesus' blood, without getting into arguments about PSA. (They always bring up that it was a later invention—usually because they are mixing up PSA with what Anselm brought in in the Middle Ages which was something more along the lines of penal satisfaction....a refinement, not a new invention. PSA is all over Scripture and the church fathers.)

Anyway, I am definitely going to do a blog post or podcast on atonement, but in the meantime, here is where I land. PSA isn't the ONLY way to describe what Jesus did on the cross. There are elements of Jesus Victor, moral example, ransom (not to Satan), government, scapegoat and others that all have biblical backing. I don't think we need to pick one at the exclusion of the others. However, it is my firm belief that any atonement theology that does not include substitution is not Christian. That may sound overly dogmatic, but in my opinion, denying substitution strikes at the heart of the essentials of the faith.

It also sounds like some of your scriptural challenges might also have to do with predestination/free will.

You may find this podcast from DTS helpful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnSJJsHfVig

One thing that might help is a little expansion on the scripture Eric mentions in Acts 4. Verse 10 does say, "Jesus Christ, whom you crucified," but then verses 27-29 record this prayer which is directed to God: "For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place."

I would say this is a both/and event, one of those "you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good" situations (Genesis 50:20).

You are very welcome Eric. Most conservative evangelicals, like Alisa says, would say that PSA is not the only orthodox position, but it is the one we are quite convinced is in fact the full biblical position. I fully agree with Alisa that many other theories do point to a key element of the atonement, but we believe that PSA best encompasses all of these key biblical elements. I also agree with Diane that it is not an either/or situation. God used the evil actions of human beings to bring about His ultimate purpose of punishing Christ in our place. And I agree with Alisa that without substitution there is no Christian position, but I would add that without a strong assertion that the atonement appeases the wrath of God in some sense is also not truly biblical in any sense. One's doctrine in my estimation doesn't have to be as direct as PSA (although as said I do believe PSA is correct), but I do believe it has to be present to be orthodox. I don't want to comment too much on the passages you pointed to because as Alisa pointed out how one exegetes those particular texts from a conservative evangelical standpoint has a lot to do with where one falls on the Calvinist/Arminian debate and I fall on the Calvinist side and I'm pretty sure Alisa does not. I can't wait for the podcast on the atonement though as that is such a fascinating topic both biblically and historically.

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Audrey

3/21/2018 09:26:17 am

Thank you so much for the work you are doing. Please keep it up!

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J

9/12/2018 01:43:34 pm

Hi, thank you so much for this article. I was wondering if the teaching by Peter Scazzero via his books Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, would fall under this as well? I'm currently going through his book on a recommendation from a trusted friend, and am surprised at his references to Catholicism, or this overarching theme that we've been doing church all wrong. Instead of pointing back to the early church in the book of Acts, he's admonishing monks and what seems like mystics.